Mr. Jeremy Masding:

At the risk of embarrassing myself, I am actually on my third go, just to put the facts on the table. The first restructuring plan was in May 2012. That was a very top-down exercise where I asked the troika for permission to try to build out the bank. The Deputy will understand that I had been in job for five minutes and it felt to me that, top-down, there was a bank to be created. The first one in my head was agreed in principle because it gave us a chance to try to build out the bank.

We submitted the second plan in August 2013. We were making good progress on that but then the comprehensive assessment came in. In a small organisation like ours, there are only so many plates one can spin, so the comprehensive assessment became all encompassing. On the back of the comprehensive assessment and also on the back of the improvement in the Irish macroeconomic fundamentals, I think the third restructuring plan is by far the strongest. I have a higher level of confidence for it being approved than the first and second ones.